The remodeling of office interiors has historically been an expensive and disruptive procedure. In recent years, many firms have abandoned the traditional lay-out consisting of open office pools adjacent to private offices which are enclosed by permanent walls. These inflexible lay-outs are expensive to remodel when departmental realignment dictates the creation of new enclosed offices or an expansion of the open office pool area.
A number of companies have solved this problem by selecting the so-called "open office plan" for newly constructed or remodeled office areas. This scheme typically includes portable work stations, acoustic space dividers, and acoustical ceiling materials. One of the important elements of this lay-out is the space divider, which can, if acoustically suitable, provide both visual and speech privacy. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,592,288; 3,592,289; and 4.057,123 describe the theory and recent developments in acoustic space divider construction.
Although space dividers provide the desired flexibility in office arrangements for low rearrangement costs, there are certain inherent drawbacks in utilizing these units. The dividers are prone to wear and tear from normal use, or even a quick demise from accidental spills or tearing, but the high cost and difficulty of repairing them usually necessitates expensive replacement instead. This replacement is considerably more expensive than the repainting or redecorating of traditional office areas.
There also exists a serious problem with color. In order to avoid a monolithic appearance it is desirable to have different color schemes in various office spaces and other work areas in an open plan environment. This can be accomplished by using different colors on the two sides of a divider and coordinating the office furniture to the particular color. However, most manufacturers of space dividers do not warehouse anything other than single color (i.e. same color on both faces) dividers simply because of the great number that would be needed. For example, if a manufacturer uses 9 basic colors, warehousing of only one unit of all the combinations would require 45 individual units. As a result, multicolored dividers must usually be specially ordered, a procedure which takes a considerable amount of time. Even when this is done, there is still a problem if it is later decided that one office or work area is "out of place". When it is moved to its correct position there will necessarily be a conflict between the furniture and the divider color in one of the areas affected by the move.